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O’Keeffe, Alina, Ozuem, Wilson ORCID: 0000-0002-0337-1419 and Lancaster, Geoff (2016) Leadership marketing: an exploratory study. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 24 (5). pp. 418-443. doi:10.1080/0965254X.2014.1001867

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Leadership Marketing: An exploratory study

Wilson Ozuem* Alina O’Keeffe, and Geoff Lancaster

University of Gloucestershire, UK*, University of Wales, UK**, London

School of Commerce

Abstract

In an era when collaboration is key to business prosperity, the ability to develop one truly

coherent and agile brand lived by its employees and delivered to the external stakeholders

has become extremely challenging. Unity between the internal brand and a company’s

external image, when change is the only constant, has nearly vanished. The marketing

function is frequently being underemphasised at the board level. Furthermore existing

approach to leading business devalues the importance of marketing and its role in leading

organisational change. This paper is about how marketing can partner with organisational

leadership for a mutually beneficial exchange of skills and capabilities in order to be able to

reinvent organisations rapidly enough to cope with shifts in the external business

environment and create a sustainable future for the business. From an interpretivist

perspective, the current paper explores the novel concept of “leadership marketing”, which

challenges the conventional view of marketing and leadership as two separate fields and

offers a holistic approach for business management and brand alignment.

Introduction

Marketing literature in the past decades has increasingly reflected the need for marketing to

lead organisational change (Day 2011). Clearly most extant literature confines marketing to

the functional marketing mix (Baker, 2007). There is a recognition that marketing should be

looked at beyond the functionalist perspective: ‘To excel in a global economy, the field of

marketing must take a new position, rethinking its fundamental relationship to all aspects of

the organisation and its external environment’ (Morris, 1987). This study is aimed at

establishing a new transformational concept of leadership marketing, which is based on the

integration of the two academic and business terrains - leadership and marketing. Also, the

study aspires to explore the role marketing plays in driving organisational change. With the

speed of change the current business environment, marketing practices quickly go out of date

if not attuned to market needs. Companies are required to align their internal and external

perceptions of the brand with organisational competencies. Prior to determining the role that

marketing plays in leading organisational change, the novel concept of leadership marketing

needs to be defined. It is also necessary to discover the components and prerequisites for the

successful adaptation of leadership marketing. Hence, in order to attain the above stated aims

and objectives, the following research questions will be addressed: What are the determinants

of the new leadership marketing paradigm? What is the role of leadership marketing in

driving organisational change within the business and across its different functions?

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

An increasing number of companies are becoming customer-centred as a result of the long-

standing recognition of the importance of marketing orientation in today’s highly competitive

business environment. Adoption of the marketing concept, based on customer focus and

integration of departments, has been accentuated as a foundation for maintaining long-lasting

business success (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Harris, 2002). Furthermore, the nature of

business has evolved such that companies have realised the significance of internal

organisational culture and strong employee relations in achieving sustainable business

performance (Carrig and Wright, 2006). From the marketing perspective, employees have

become internal customers due to their ability to satisfy the needs of other employees inside

the organisation, which is an antecedent to external customer satisfaction. As part of a natural

evolution of marketing organisation, customer satisfaction has driven many companies to

establish much closer relationships with their suppliers, partners and others in the supply

chain. This in turn has emphasised the importance of collaboration between all the

organisations involved in delivery of the final product. As a result, lines between internal and

external stakeholders have been blurred a long time ago and the distinction between the two

will further lose its clarity. This implies a new way of thinking for organisations to remain

successful in the face of advancing competition and new technologies. As business strategies

become more complex, culture is required to grow into the level of complexity required to

implement them (McGuire, et al., 2009).

The two notions mentioned above bring out opposite sides of the marketing spectrum

whereby external marketing centres around customers by developing an organisation’s

outside image, while internal marketing focuses on employees by shaping organisational

culture and identity. The link between the two lies with leadership that shapes the way

employees perceive the organisation, which in turn influences the projection of the image to

external audiences, including customers (Hogg and Carter, 2000). Predictably, the quality of

leadership explains as much as 45 per cent of an organisation’s performance (Day and Lord,

1986). The challenge for many companies is to be able to effectively represent and maintain

connections between their unique and compelling identity i.e. inside brand, embodied in

employee culture, and external organisational image i.e. outside brand, portrayed by the

company to its customers and other external stakeholders. Quite a few companies fall short

by failing to deliver the brand promise made to target customers and even more fail to

effectively adapt to the changes in the business environment and reconfigure their customer

value-creating processes to match the new positioning.

Amongst the first to address this were Mark and Pearson (2001) who developed a meaningful

management framework that uses brand archetypes, whereby brand takes on symbolic

significance and becomes an expression of meaning which leads to a consistent message

being communicated to external audiences. Speak and Hanson (2008) proposed a neo-brand

platform which argues that the brand needs to support employee engagement, i.e. brand

inside-building, and exude creative possibilities to capture the fascination of prospective

customers, i.e. brand outside-building. Both of these studies approached the problem from the

brand management perspective. However, the dynamic nature of the business and ever-

changing environmental conditions often demand organisational change which encompasses

more than just repositioning of the company’s brand. Such changes often create a need for

companies to alter their direction and re-define their value proposition to meet expectations

of external stakeholders. The internal organisational environment also requires readjustment

to support the creation of customer value internally. As such, marketing leaders’ ability to

predict external trends and transform the organisation accordingly becomes imperative in

achieving sustainable and superior performance. Given that organisational change and

leadership are often studied within a strategic management context, but more seldom within

the confines of marketing, studying leadership that is beyond the scope of the board of

directors is critical to a better understanding of change management within marketing-

oriented organisations. However, the two research streams – leadership and marketing – have

yet to be integrated.

LEADERSHIP AND MARKETING: WHAT LIES WITHIN?

Almost no academic research has been carried out on the theme of the role of marketing in

leading organisational change, despite the long history study in both leadership and

marketing individually. The link between the two fields has emerged following the

recognition of the importance of continuous organisational development in a constantly

changing environment. Many self-published articles of opinion leaders in the field of

leadership marketing form a starting point for this research, despite the lack of thorough

academic backing. The emerging concepts outlined in these articles are used to lay a

foundation for this study and are further enhanced by drawing on an already established pool

of academic marketing and leadership knowledge. However prior to defining the concept of

leadership marketing, the definition of the terms involved is provided to ensure uniformity

and understanding throughout the study. This will also define the scope and the point of view

on marketing and leadership for the purposes of this study. In its basic form, leadership is

defined as the process of influencing others to achieve certain goals (Pass at al., 2006). As a

personal quality, leadership enables a person to manage, administer, motivate and direct

others, as well as earning respect of superiors (Davies at al., 2003). Drucker (1973) noted

that leadership involves “the lifting of a man’s vision, to higher sights, the raising of a man’s

performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal

limits.” Moving beyond personality, leadership is based on trust and courage to delegate

responsibilities to others to fully exploit their potential. Leadership, as a business

management discipline, is a recent phenomenon, emerged in the post-war years and took off

in the 1970s (Birkinshaw, 2010). On a strategic level, successful leaders “project a clear and

consistent picture of a desired organisational identity and put in place conditions that increase

the likelihood of desired behaviours through enhanced employee satisfaction” (Bradshaw,

1998). The concept of “transformational leadership” suggest that leaders transform followers’

personal values and self-beliefs, move them to higher levels of needs and aspirations (Jung,

2001), and raise the performance expectations of their followers (Bass, 1995). Contemporary

views of strategic leadership inevitably revert to Porter’s classic “five forces” competition

theory, which sees strategists as practitioner economists who analyse and manage market

forces, as well as practitioner psychologists who analyse and manage their own and others’

thought processes (Gavetti, 2011). Drawing on the Sustainable Marketing Leadership (SML)

model, it can be stated that effective leadership rests on four main components – strategic

visioning, integrated planning, managing performance and marketing controllership (Shapiro,

2005). Those are enabled by compelling vision, clear organisational identity, effective culture

for employee alignment and deep understanding of consumer behaviour to facilitate customer

satisfaction. According to Werbach (2009), when leaders at the top instigate a strategy for

sustainability and guide the organisation through the process of increasing transparency,

engaging employees, and embracing network partners to accomplish important sustainability

goals, they set the conditions to let everyone improve the company’s strategy.

With regard to change, which perhaps is the only constant nowadays in the business

environment, the true leader sees it as a challenge and the foundation for organisational

growth and expansion (Billire, 2009). In choosing strategic direction, leaders are expected to

estimate uncertainly and lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise (Courtney,

Kirkland and Viguerie, 1997). However there is a tendency for businesses to rely only on an

explicit knowledge of numbers and data, which prevents leaders from coping with change

(Nanaka and Takeuchi, 2011); this is because such knowledge is contextual and ignores

people’s values, goals and relationships. Hence, one of the substantial shifts in creating a

sustainable future is that it must extend beyond the company – it must be about pursuing the

common good and serving the higher purpose (Nanaka and Takeuchi, 2011). The main task

of leadership nowadays, as argued by Martin (2007), is to create a space where employees

can generate new ideas and departments can work closely together to build an organisation

that is effective, agile and more prepared to respond to complex challenges. On the subject of

marketing, the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) provides an updated definition of

marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,

delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and

society at large” (cited in Gundlach and Wilkie, 2009). Furthermore, the Chartered Institute

of Marketing, the UK equivalent to the AMA, also revised its definition of marketing as “the

strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling

customer demand. It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing

relationships, creating good customer services and communication benefits. By operating

customer-centrically, marketing brings positive return on investment, satisfied shareholders

and stakeholders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural

change and a sustainable business future” ( cited in Charles, 2007). The modern concept of

marketing is based on the idea that a business should discover and then satisfy customer

needs rather than focusing on sales of its existing products or services produced without any

deep insight into consumers’ preferences, wants and desires and do so better than its

competitors. What’s more, four key areas of marketing competency, as revealed by a recent

Accenture survey of 400+ marketing executives, comprise operations, customer analytics,

innovation and customer engagement (Smith and Nunes, 2010).

LEADERSHIP MARKETING COMPONENTS

This section presents a combined view on the essential parts of leadership and marketing.

Firstly, the importance of marketing orientation and brand image is discussed, followed by

the vital components of internal marketing, organisational culture and band identity. Lastly,

major theories on culture and leadership are presented. Many theories have been developed

on marketing, nevertheless many researchers agree with Deshpande and Webster’s (1989)

view of marketing orientation as being: “a shared set of beliefs and values that puts the

consumer into the centre of the firm’s thinking”. While Kohli and Jaworski (1990) define

marketing orientation as an activity-based characteristic of the firm, Konopa and Calabaro

(1971) and Felton (1959) view it as external consumer orientation, as opposed to product

development orientation, and integration of all departmental functions within the

organisation. Along the same line of thought, Avlonitis and Gounaris (1999) stress

satisfaction of customer needs and a business ability to adjust products and services as a

response to the changes in those needs and wants so as to continue delivering customer value.

Even though the main emphasis is still on customer satisfaction, Misiag (2001) defines

marketing orientation as an internal driving force that influences not only customers, but also

employees of the organisation. Narver and Slater (1990) present market orientation as the

form of the organisationally spread culture, which in the most effective and efficient way

supports necessary behaviour for the formation of higher value for customers, and by that it

forms assumptions for better results of the business.

Branding is seen as one of the core elements of marketing which is used to build distinctive

brand identities that will be recognised by consumers in increasingly crowded marketplaces

(Low and Fullerton, 1994). Amongst many other benefits, a brand’s ability to obtain a

definite competitive advantage (Kim, et al., 2003) and add financial value (Murphy, 1992)

has been widely acknowledged and many brand-building concepts have been developed with

this in mind. Beyond a brand name that differentiates one product from others, Boulding

(1956) developed the concept of brands as symbolic images. Gardner and Levy (1955) argued

that a brand image, which is the external perception of the organisation in the eyes of

consumers and other stakeholders, outweighs the significance of the “technical” product

features. With differentiation a purpose of branding, communications refocused on building

deeper emotional connection with consumers based on values (Goodyear, 1996) and feelings

about the brand (Gardner and Levy, 1955). The brand positioning concept was introduced by

Ries and Trout (1981) that stated that brands create unique positions in consumers’ minds

through distinctive brand associations. However, as consumer perceptions are continually

changing, companies need to focus on building a more stable brand reputation, which

represents multiple images over time (Fomburn and Van Riel, 1997). Kapferer (1997)

suggested that brand identity – what the brand stands for from the firm’s point of view –

should take precedence over brand image or how that brand is perceived from an external

perspective. This raises the significance of internal communication and employee alignment

with an organisation’s culture, an important component of brand identity that shapes

corporate brand values and plays a unifying role to maintain the consistency of the message

(Olins 1995, Mitchell, 1994). On a similar note, Mark and Pearson (2001) addressed the

critical need and tremendous opportunity to create, preserve and nurture brand meaning by

leveraging its deep archetypal roots. More recent developments included Andersen’s (2010)

view that branding occurs when the company’s projected self-identity aligns positively with

the consumer’s projection of the company’s identity. This resonates with Ind (2007)

suggesting that a successful brand’s essence extends from the internal vision and values into

the external personality and positioning. As a result, strong brand names often are used to

support new product launches where consumer perceptions of the original brands are

automatically transferred to the extension (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Andersen, 2010).

Internal Marketing, Culture and Brand Identity

Having initially emerged from service industries, internal marketing shapes organisational

culture to transform the orientation of the organisation to focus upon employees, who are

paramount in delivering the brand to external stakeholders. Internal marketing literature

emphasized the crucial element of “communicating by deeds” organisational values and

offering employees a clear vision that is worth pursuing (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).

Internal marketing has been suggested as a key instrument to implement successful internal

brand building, whereby employees better accept the brand values and align their attitudes

accordingly (Vallaster and de Chernatony, 2003). According to Schein’s (1992) conception,

organisational culture consists of collective assumptions, values and artefacts that are shared

by members of the organisation. A company culture is a mix of behaviours and attitudes of

those who are part of it; often unsaid, intangible but deeply ingrained and embedded in every

individual within the workplace can be summarised as “the way we do things around here”

(Jacobs, 2011). Organisations have frequently tried to establish cultures through written rules,

policies and procedures, but in so doing misunderstood the whole concept of “culture” and

such an approach has potential to adversely affect employee engagement.

Webster and Deshpande (1989) were amongst the first to address the effect of organisational

culture upon marketing. Hofstede (1980) and Pfeffer (1997) linked strong culture to high

business performance. As proposed by many (Narver and Slater, 1990, Grönroos, 1990),

internal marketing nurtures the culture that most effectively and efficiently creates behaviours

that lead to the provision of superior customer value and motivates employees toward

customer-oriented performance. It ensures that staff understand the brand’s promise and can

deliver it thus aligning customer brand expectations with employee performance (Hatch and

Schulz, 2003). From this perspective, Jacobs (2003) asserts that a brand represents the

relationship an organization has with its employees just as much as it represents the

relationship that it has with its customers. Therefore internal marketing and strong employee

cultures represent a critical success factor in linking the external and internal view in the

organisation (Dunne and Barnes, 2000). A new concept of leadership culture involves the

meaning that people make of the organisation and its environment and the tools they have to

create shared direction, alignment and commitment throughout the business (McGuire, et al.,

2009). A hierarchy of leadership culture developed by Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL)

is illustrated on Figure 1.

Figure 1. Hierarchy of Leadership Culture (Source: McGuire, et al., 2009)

Closely linked with culture is the concept of an organisation’s identity, which is defined as “a

commonly shared understanding of the values of the firm held by employees”. Organisation’s

image, on the other hand, is the way stakeholders view the firm from an external perspective

(Hatch and Schultz, 1997). Although marketing culture is part of the broader corporate

culture of an organisation, internal marketing initiative can be a catalyst to reshaping the

entire culture within the firm, which leads to much greater integration between departments

(Dunne and Barnes, 2000). By changing the attitudes and assumptions of the employees, so

to align them with the desired organisational identity, cultural change will ensue.

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE AND LEADERSHIP

Continuous change is a fact of life for organisations - significant shifts in consumer

psychology resulting from recent economic turmoil and rapid technological developments are

just two major changes that organisation must embrace. Those companies who capture

changes in consumer mindset, and consequently transform their core practices are able to

benefit from emerging opportunities and potential growth. And so, change places uncertainty

in the way of company’s strategic development, making it extremely challenging for leaders

to predict the future of their businesses accurately enough to choose a clear strategic direction

(Courtney, Kirkland and Viguerie, 1997). To successfully embrace change, organisations

need to adopt new leadership mindsets, not just new skills (McGuire, et al., 2009). Felton

(1956) was amongst the first to recognise that marketing is a very complex management

function which is also affected by change. A company’s ability to respond continuously to

unanticipated changes that impact its performance is referred to as “strategic flexibility”

(Evans, 1991, Aaker and Keller, 1990). However, the challenge presented here is how to

develop business-wide capabilities that are sustainable in the ever-changing business

environment by seeing organisation as a whole and recognising interdependence of its

various functions, the view which is rooted in systems theory (Felton, 1959). Collins (2001)

expressed that marketing is driving organisational change that goes beyond a change

programme. For the purposes of this study, organisational change is defined not as an

overnight sensation with a moment of breakthrough, but a process of continuous evolvement,

growth and development. This coincides with Collins’ view on change, which described

change not as a change programme with motivational stunts and big turnaround plans, but a

rather slow progression with hardly any radical transformation (Collins, 2001). Organisations

seeking to adapt during turbulent times cannot force change through purely technical

approaches such as restructuring (McGuire, et al., 2009). One suggestion emerging from

recent studies was to develop leadership capability, which is capacity of the company to

sustain its future leaders (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2007). According to the conventional

approach, the right business structures ensure efficiencies, innovation and agility for

organisations to succeed and sustain (McGuire, et al., 2009). However, in reality, there is

insufficient leadership capability, which is evidenced by results of the survey, conducted by

the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and talent management

consultancy DDI – “one-fifth of leaders and HR professionals consider their companies’

leadership development programmes as ineffective” (Stevens, 2011). Moreover, Steve

Newhall, managing director of DDI (2011), pointed out that while “identifying and nurturing

talent is vital, most of the HR professional in the UK revealed that they lacked the ability to

fill vacant leadership positions”. This raises another challenge for the UK businesses.

At present, the ability to integrate systems, collaborate with partners and coordinate

across the supply chain remains elusive (McGuire, et al., 2009). According to the behavioural

model of charismatic leadership (Conger and Kanungo 1998; Conger, Kanungo and Menon

2000), leaders are those who possess high sensitivity to the environment and followers’

needs, articulate an attractive vision for the organization and inspire subordinates to follow

their attitudes and behaviours. Sisodia, Sheth and Wolfe (2007) argue that leadership from

the top needs to be more inspired and catalytic rather than directive. Leadership provides

direction for the whole organisation by creating a compelling vision and inspires the

organisational change by motivating employees and convincing them to follow. Thus, leaders

play an indispensible role in taking an organisation from where it is now to where it needs to

be and instilling into employees the company’s culture, values and vision and continuously

communicating these through deeds (Berry, Hensel and Burke 1976; Grönroos 1990). There

are emerging views on leadership as a collective activity, rather than individual competency.

As evidenced by CCL’s research, a view on leadership as a process that happens throughout

the organisation through interdependent decision-making is becoming more dominant as

considered with regards to the future (Martin, 2007). As a result of the research, CCL

proposed a model, illustrated on Figure 2, for building shared direction, alignment and

commitment by way of reaching the balance between inside-out leadership and outside-in

management.

Figure 2. Inside-Out Change Leadership Model (Source: Martin, 2007)

However Ulriuch and Smallwood (2007) went further to develop a concept of “leadership

brand”. It argues that successful leadership requires identity of leaders throughout an

organisation that bridges customer expectations and employee and organisational behaviour.

Leading by example and inspirational communication are the key to persuading others to

accept and support an organisation’s new direction and creating a culture conductive to

change (Kotter, 1995). Unsurprisingly the nature of effective leadership is changing in itself.

CCL’s research substantiated that flexibility, collaboration, cross boundaries and collective

approaches to leadership are rising in significance as a response to challenges that are greater

than individual’s own capabilities (Martin, 2007). As a result, relationship-building and

change management skills escalated in importance replacing such traditional skills as

resourcefulness and decisiveness. Marketing leaders’ concern over culture and their role in

shaping it within their marketing teams - and even organisation as a whole - enables them to

play a central role in driving the growth and success of the business (Brand Learning, 2011).

Strategy will not succeed in a void, and leadership often makes the difference between

merely reaching for great opportunities and actually realising their potential (Hsieh and Yik,

2005).

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARKETING AND

LEADERSHIP

With an aim to integrate the roles of marketing and leadership in organisational

change an initial definition of the new concept based on the theoretical foundation suggested

by the literature review is presented. Consistent with the assumption that marketing

orientation initiates brand leadership in the market place and creates an internal brand culture

amongst employees, the financial value of branding, inspired leadership and strong employee

relations was proven in previous research (Kim, et al., 2003, Murphy, 1992; Rajagopalan and

Spreitzer, 1997; Heskett, et al., 1994; Carrig and Wright, 2006; Day and Lord, 1986). While

executive leadership has received significant attention in literature on organisational change

(Kotter, 1995; Wu, et al., 2007; Elias, 2009), research on the role of internal marketing

remains unclear focusing more on employees’ perspectives on organisational commitment

and job motivation (Vrontis, et al., 2010). Furthermore, absent is research that integrates

marketing, leadership and change. Companies that work in a networked or cross-functional

manner are delivering their brand promise in a more holistic way. Hence, leadership becomes

naturally crucial in creating alignment across the different functions of the organisation. The

beliefs that drive leadership behaviours within the organisation need to ally with the

operational business strategy (McGuire, et al., 2009). According to Maritz research sponsored

by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, many respondents felt that having a brand-literate

CEO is a massive benefit in aligning the company to the brand (Brooke, 2002). As

marketing’s scope goes beyond a department and drives the whole business (Kotler, 2001;

Brooke, 2002; Brand Learning, 2011), marketing serves as an integral link between external

branding, by building organisational image in the minds of consumers, and internal culture,

by shaping brand identity amongst employees. An ability to create brands through people is

highly enhanced by leadership capabilities of those marketers.

Leadership shapes the way employees view their organisations, which in turn influences the

projection of the brand to customers. As was proven by previous research, the quality of an

organisation’s leadership accounts for almost half of its performance (Day and Lord, 1986),

Other research, carried out by CIPD, highlighted three drivers of leadership quality -

leadership development, talent managements and management culture (Stevens, 2011). In

light of its definition, marketing is undoubtedly relevant to research on organisational change

and should be an integral part of organisational change. This represents a promising area that

deserves further investigation. Drucker was one of the first to refer to marketing in the

context of leadership. In particular he described leadership as a marketing job, which meant

that “leaders must know and understand those they lead, and lead in way followers would

relate to”. However he did little to develop this concept (Cohen, 2010). His far-reaching idea

was explicitly grounded in the following statement that “good leadership is essentially

marketing”. Deeply rooted in the concept of leadership marketing is the belief that marketing

revolves around the customer, and insight generation and brand development play significant

part, but leadership is needed to “engage the functions outside marketing that play a role in

creating products, services and brand experiences that engage customers, earn their respect

and retain their loyalty” (McGrath, 2009). With the emergence of the network society and

collaboration, this view expands further beyond the organisation to its external network of

partners - customers, suppliers and agencies, and therefore is of increasing significance.

Radcliffe (2008) sets out three leadership challenges that marketing leaders should embrace -

first, having a clear sense of purpose and vision of the company’s future; secondly, the ability

to engage with employees and partners to create that future, and thirdly the capability to

deliver the strategy in practice. This shapes the essence of the leadership marketing concept.

LEADERSHIP MARKETING VS MARKETING LEADERSHIP

There are two terms “marketing leadership” and “leadership marketing” which sound

very similar and can easily be confused, but have a completely different meaning. To ensure

clarity between those two, a clear distinction needs to be made. While marketing leadership

was a significant topic of the research back in 20th century, when automation and

technological development were driving change in the business environment and the

emphasis was only beginning to shift from production to marketing; back then, the idea of

marketing leadership was gaining momentum, as it ascertained the importance of marketing

for the success of any company, especially at the times of constant change. Marketing

leadership emphasised the dynamism of marketing and evolved around a need “to see the

enterprise as a whole and to understand how the various functions of the company depend on

one another” (Felton, 1956). This formed a foundation for what is now known as a “holistic

view of the organisation”.

On the other hand, leadership marketing, which is the sole focus of this study, is a

completely separate subject. Leadership marketing is a very novel concept, not previously

researched, therefore there is no exact and acknowledged definition of the term. Therefore

one of the aims of this study is to define the term of “marketing leadership”. Based on the

secondary research of the extant models and theories on leadership, marketing, culture and

change, a comprehensive overview of leadership marketing concept is illustrated on Figure 3.

Specifically, it proposes that marketing acts as an agent of change by being first to spot the

changes in the external environment and understand trends in the industry e.g. changes in

customer needs, economic climate, new technology. Then, together with other departments,

e.g. production, IT and research and development, it creates solutions to address those

external changes.

Figure 3. Theoretical Model of Leadership Marketing

The process starts with changes in the business environment, where repositioning of the

company’s external brand is necessary often result in a need for realignment of the internal

brand and culture amongst employees to reflect modified external image of the organisation.

This consequently generates strategic change for the business. In particular, the theoretical

model suggests that leadership marketing mediates the relationship between external

positioning of the organisation and its internal culture and employee relations. These

relationships and their underlying principles will be further explored as part of primary

research, which follows.

DATA COLLECTION METHOD AND ANALYSIS

Prior to the primary data collection, a list of interview themes and questions was

prepared, although these varied depending on the flow of conversation. The interview guide

included both open and closed-ended questions aimed at gathering data to address the two

objectives of this study; this approach allowed additional questions to be asked to fully

explore the research question, given the specific organisational context and professional

background. Interviewees were informed of the outline of the questions in advance

(approximately one week prior to the interview date), but in line with the semi-structured

approach, deviations that have occurred were not possible to notify beforehand. The

respondents were allowed to elaborate upon any points or conclusions during the interview

which they considered important, and which were not included in the interview guidelines.

Also, the researcher investigated inconsistencies between answers to gain a better

understanding of the interviewee (Roulston, 2010)

The initial sample size of potential interviewees that were contacted during the last

week of October was 80, with an aim to get at least half of them to agree to an interview.

There were 35 interviews carried out during November, which was set up within the Greater

London area due to budget constraints. Those were arranged by email invitation (week of 24th

October 2011) and follow up phone calls (week of 31st October 2012). Forty-two responses

were received during those two weeks and 35 people decided to go through with the

interview. Due to the time constraints it was decided not to seek more interviewees. Most of

the interviews were conducted face-to-face to gain an in-depth insight into opinions of the

people interviewed. The interviews were set up at locations convenient for the interviewees

and those ranged from the local coffee shops to companies’ offices to exhibitions and events.

Five interviews were arranged over the telephone due to busy schedules. Each of the

interviews took on average one hour including breaks with the longest interview lasting two

hours and the shortest being twenty minutes. An introduction of the study was provided

within the email-invitation with an aim to resolve any questions and give a background to the

research and topic under investigation. Notes of all the responses were taken and audio -

recorded in order to keep a record of the data and provide a point of reference for the

researchers.

Analysis and Discussion

One of the most common approaches to interpreting qualitative information involves

identification of the common themes throughout the collected data (Woods, 2006).

Interviewing marketing leaders, entrepreneurs and leadership experts provided an invaluable

insight into defining the concept of leadership marketing, and an exploration of the role of

marketing in driving organisational change. When all necessary information was gathered

from the semi-structured interviews, the participants’ responses were transcribed in order to

allow analysis of the data. The items of information (e.g. statements) were grouped under

each of the questions asked, but separately for respondents from marketing and leadership

areas.

A process defined by Cooper and McIntyre (1993) was adopted to generate and

categorise the themes. Firstly, the researcher chose a random sample of transcribed interviews

and identified the differences and similarities amongst interviewees’ responses in relation to

the research questions (Eisenhardt, 1989, Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007). As a result,

an initial set of themes were generated, which were then tested against a new set of interview

responses to see if they are still valid. If a given item seemed relevant to several themes, then

it was included in all of them. Responses of marketing professionals were analysed along

with the responses of leadership specialists in order to identify the existence of a common

theme. The recurring themes from both marketing and leadership were recognised as

imperative for interpretation and analysis were summarised in Table 2 below. Furthermore,

Table 3 comprises minor themes.

Major Themes Perceived Benefits Key Issues

Agility Organisational

ability to adapt and

move faster in

response to change

Communication, driving change, engaging

other departments, values, framework,

attuned to the market, fostering creativity,

listening internally, responsive, flexibility,

collaboration, empowerment, boundary-less

Organisational

Alignment

Coherent way of

operating and

delivering brand

promise, shared

understanding

Alignment of vision, consistency, awareness

of market needs, managing internal and

external expectations, communication,

deliver brand promise, unity, delivering

value, customer journey, innovation,

listening, common ground for moving

forward, synergies

New Paradigm Organisational

transformation and

authenticity

Mindset, whole system, integrity, collective,

systemically truthful, radically transparent,

engagement, dynamically balanced, unity,

direction and cooperation, vibrant ethos,

vision and values, internal attitude and

external appearance, openness, complex,

proactive adaptation, walking the talk, cross

departmental, differentiated and integrated,

quest for meaning

Table 4. Major Themes

Permeated Themes Perceived Benefits Key Issues

Thought Leadership Advocating a better

idea

Culture of idea-generation, creativity,

organisational excellence, cutting-edge

innovation, effectiveness, communication of

expertise, differentiation

Environmental

Awareness

Awareness of the

shifts in external

surroundings that

impact

organisation

Global economy, attuned, tight budgets,

departmental collaboration, stakeholder

needs, shared accountability, ecological,

technological change, resources, cross

boundary work

Table 3 Permeated Themes

Figure 3 illustrates the emerged themes and shows the interconnection between them.

“New paradigm” is considered a comprehensive concept of leadership marketing that

embraces all other themes identified.

Figure: Emerged Themes for Leadership Marketing

MAJOR THEMES

Prior to going deeper into the discussion about the major themes, it is useful to draw on

the initial definition of the term leadership marketing. The only closed-ended question of the

semi-structure interview was explored with 35 respondents, who were invited to choose one

of three provided statements about leadership marketing with an option to justify their choice

and/or to add own comments. Table 3 states the percentage of the respondents that agreed

with each of the definitions provided (interviewees were allowed to choose more than one

statement).

The Definition of Leadership Marketing % Agree

1

Leadership marketing is essential for marketers who are expected to help

deliver demand-led growth, involving marketing skills as insight generation

and brand development as well as leadership skills needed to engage other

departments within the organisation and external suppliers and partners

48%

2

Leadership marketing helps to generate customer insights and identify

opportunities to create consumer value, but also gets the whole company

aligned in developing and then delivering solutions that create customer

perceived value in practice

33%

3 Leadership marketing is an approach involved with aligning organisational

identity with external brand image by encouraging employees to live the 48%

brand and then present it to the customers

Table: The Definitions of Leadership Marketing

Figure 3 illustrates that the first and the third

definitions were equally supported by the respondents. The

second definition attracted the lowest score. This is

justified by the fact that the first definition is broader and

involves aspects of both leadership and marketing.

A Sponsorship Director at one of the international

conference organising companies stated: Figure 4 Split of Responses

“I fall down with leadership skills coming from marketing – they have to create the

excitement in other departments, but it is up to management in each division to implement”.

The three definitions were drafted with a view to providing an idea to the respondents

about what leadership marketing could stand for. Each of the definitions was kept broad and

contained at least one integral element of the proposed leadership marketing concept. Neither

of the definitions encompassed the concept fully with an intention to identify the areas that

will be deemed as important part of leadership marketing. As a result, many of the

respondents have argued that statements need to be joined to have a comprehensive

definition. This is reflected in the following interviewee’s comment, by a former Marketing

Director at American Express -“I agree with all three of them, but none captures it all”. To

support this, a Managing Director of the UK top culture transformation and leadership

consultancy stated:

“The first definition is about a premise of what marketing is. Second one focuses on a

connectivity piece that marketing needs leadership for collaboration, focused on specific

action; third is more push and consumer/brand-oriented with a focus on marketing”.

On the same note, the Director of Education at the Chartered Institute of Marketing

(CIM) added:

“First one lacks customer perspective, second one is customer focused, third is culture

orientated. Combination of i and ii, in order to grow business, but elements of all of them are

important depending on nature of the business that you are in”.

Moreover, many respondents tried to substantiate why they have not chosen the second

definition. In order to generate customer insights and deliver solutions that create customer-

perceived value, the company needs to have a strong culture and its corporate identity aligned

with its external brand image. Of those who have chosen the second definition, the Head of

News at London School of Business and Finance (LSBF), commented:

“It embraces the customer whole journey and considers marketing as an insight tool

rather than just sales”.

Lastly, to support the importance of culture as the focus of the third definition of

leadership marketing, a serial entrepreneur and director of seven businesses suggested:

“The first two definitions are about what leadership marketing does, but the last one is

about what it really is. Leadership marketing affects organisation internally and externally”.

Internal marketing and brand alignment are important aspects of leadership marketing,

which enable employee engagement and creation of a strong organisational culture. From the

marketing side, customer insight generation and anticipation of unmet consumer needs were

regarded as imperative.

AGILITY

One of the success factors in the modern rapidly-changing business environment is

organisational ability to embrace change. When asked about the necessity of both good

leadership and marketing skills for organisations to develop along with the market, all of the

interviewees agreed. A serial entrepreneur and director of seven businesses answered:

“Yes, of course. Leadership is involved with looking in – at team dynamics, vision and

mission and marketing is about looking out – for customer opportunities. If the company has

very good marketing but poor leadership, then there will be high staff rotation; if vice versa,

than the company will be a good place to work, but no one will buy its products”.

One of the responses that stood out was by one of the leadership consultants:

“Yes, but not always. For example, with Steve Jobs and Apple there was no market

research or focus groups, because he was a visionary, backed up with fantastic marketing

people. They are both necessary, but not sufficient; it is also important to foster creativity

and innovation to stay ahead of the market e.g. Nokia had both good conventional leadership

and marketing, but failed to adapt to the changing environment and lost its market share”.

When asked in what ways do leadership and marketing contribute to adapting

organisations to changing business conditions, interviewees all recognised that leadership is

fundamental to change and the organisation depends on leadership to have a clear vision of

where the business is going. Good management is critical as it impacts all aspects of the

business and is responsible for recognizing skills that organisation needs to stay ahead of the

competition. With regard to marketing, it plays a primary role in communicating, ensuring

brand awareness, building reputation and implementing the changes set out by leadership

team, as well as identifying market opportunities and threats.

As a Chief Operational Officer of a large UK charity stated:

“Job of a leader is to be attuned to the environmental context and make sure

organisation is connected to what is happening outside; oversee the strategy and its

implementation in the external environment; the task for marketing is to charge the most

appropriate price, maximise channels to market and ensure that offering is attuned to the

market”.

Throughout the responses, there was support for both marketing and leadership

needing to be sensitive to market needs. A Managing Director of the UK’s leading culture

transformation consultancy added:

“Senior leaders and marketing people need to work hand in hand to anticipate those

changes; leadership (including marketing) of the organisation needs to be proactive and

responsive to shifting conditions, not reactive; looking long-term versus short-term;

marketing needs to contribute to the strategy, be creative and test back with the market to see

a strategic way forward”.

Both leadership and marketing are important in communication and delivering change

in the organisation. Leadership is significant in determining direction and driving strategy,

while marketing is more content-driven i.e. about research of customer needs, the information

from which is a catalyst for change. Hence, there is a connection between the two practices.

As a leadership expert and personal coach said:

“Marketing strategy needs to be aligned with vision to avoid mixed messages, public

awareness of what company is about, what company stands for. Marketing and leadership

should be related for the company and its customers”.

There is a tendency towards marketers being less specialist, but more general leaders in

future, as marketing and leadership becoming inseparable. Conventional content-driven

marketing is becoming less important, as leaders need to understand their brand and

marketers need to be great leaders to get whole company aligned.

ORGANISATIONAL ALIGNMENT

To deliver a holistic consumer experience, organisations need to be aligned internally to

have a clear joint view on how they work with a network of external partners and suppliers.

All of the respondents agreed that there should be an emphasis on enhanced cross-

departmental collaboration and mutual sharing of accountabilities between business functions

for organisations to adapt to changes in the external environment. Leadership marketing is

seen as a catalyst for breaking barriers between marketing and other departments in an

effective organisational culture. As a result change in remuneration is necessary to encourage

teamwork, collaboration, long-term perspective and innovation. As one leadership

professional stated:

“With leadership marketing, if you take it seriously, the whole organisation will

become a marketing tool, as marketing spreads to other departments, becoming less silo, and

with more interaction between the departments to come up with true consumer relationship”.

While interviewees from the marketing side were closer to convincing and creative

skills of marketing leaders and PR agencies professionals deemed it is about effective

communication, leadership consultants believed in a leader’s ability to inspire and discern, as

the most essential leadership characteristics. Ability to create a compelling vision of the

future, engage other people and good listening skills were amongst others named across the

interviewees. As a Chief Operational Officer of the UK charity said:

“It is an ability to be out-looking and having an understanding of market place that you

are operating in; focus and ability to connect; curiosity about the bigger picture; influencing

skills and ability to persuade and have people believe in and agree to do what you want them

to do; creativity to connect your offer and external environment in an innovative way, helping

to maximize brand and profit”.

On the same note, another marketing professional added:

“Leaders need to be able to have a point of view, communicate it, decide who to

collaborate with and have clear metrics to measure results so to make a clear case and

create alignment”

Organisations need to be aligned internally to be able to deliver a cohesive message to

the customers. It is essential to have congruity between employees perceptions of the brand

with the brand image in the eyes of consumers simply because staff are ambassadors of the

brand and they are the ones projecting it to customers. With advanced digital and social

media, Head of Social at Ogivly, an advertising and marketing agency, said:

“Everything an organisation does takes place in networks and collective actions;

modern brands need to be about collective experiences instead of individual”.

Strong leadership, market awareness and transparency in communication were named

as approaches to strengthen the connection between internal and external brand to prevent

issues of customer satisfaction and sustainable business development.

NEW PARADIGM

With the rise of social media, customers expect organisations to act ethically and

become more transparent. They want to know about company’s operations, people involved

and organisational purpose and goals, beyond profit-making – it is more about quest for

meaning:

“People are buying into meaning, not products – take a look at Apple “fanaticism”,

this allowed them to charge premium prices; Apple is an example of the company that trusts

customers and gives them holistic experiences. Organisations need to be bold in

communication”.

Throughout the interviews, a number of the respondents touched upon the issue

marketing not being transparent enough. One leadership consultant said:

“Marketing people are not always aware of why are we doing marketing - what for and

what is it all about really? There has been a lot of “puffery” – exaggeration used in

advertising and promotion, which is continuing to be legally allowed – that resulted in

perception of marketing as being something inauthentic. If for lawyers it is about justice and

for doctors it is about health, what is it for marketing? Perhaps, new leadership marketing is

about truth? Being systemically truthful and dynamically balanced in real time”.

On the similar note, when asked about how leadership marketing activities contribute to

creating enhanced value for the business and its customers, another leadership expert added:

“It is a matter of you believing in what you do. Leadership marketing statements to

reflect truth of what is going on in the company, having integrity of leadership aligned with

the values; employees working for positive organisation and promoting it to the buyers,

having confidence in what they are getting from the company, projecting clear and secure

message”.

Nevertheless, one of the challenges placed by existing business models is that there are

almost no marketing professionals present at the top table. It is questionable how effective

today’s marketers as leaders and managers of people are. The importance of a marketing

presence at the board level is argued by the Managing Director of PR consultancy:

“Board of the company needs to be involved in marketing and vice versa - marketing

needs to be supported by leadership of the business. The company will be more successful if

marketing and leadership are connected, especially in crisis situations when quick response

is required”.

Compared with finance, IT and operations, marketing has the least involvement with

top level strategy and leadership teams. An entrepreneur suggested a way this can be

challenged:

“Spending more time working with teams and being interested in other departments

can lead marketing to higher echelons of the organisation. Businesses change along with

customers (externally) and marketing needs to integrate more with other departments

(internally) and adapt the business by changing the offering. Brands are developed by

customers and it is less important what people inside the organisation think about the brand,

it is more important what customers think of it”.

This comes back to the agility theme discussed above. Leadership depends on a key

component - marketing. With cross support between leadership and marketing, leaders

become marketing-savvy and marketers become good leaders, so the distinction between the

two blurs. The reinvention of traditional

marketing is essential for organisations to

sustainably adapt to changes in the external

environment. A clear definition and actual

recognition of marketing is necessary to further

differentiate the practice, and only then, the

company will be able integrate its departments

into a “complex” organisation, that is intuitive,

agile and customer-centred, as illustrated on

Figure 4.3 (based on a drawing by one of the

interviewees). Proactive Adaptation Model

Even though the concept of leadership marketing is not academically grounded, the

idea of leadership marketing long ago found its place in practice. To get a better idea how

organisations implement leadership marketing, interviewees where asked to name some

examples of leadership marketing activities undertaken by their businesses. Although, most

of the participants (75 per cent) said that they have not hear about the term “leadership

marketing”, all of them where able to provide examples of such activities in their

organisations. Furthermore, this, once again, justifies the validity of the sampling techniques

and methodology chosen for this research. One of the marketing professionals answered:

“At our consultancy, we promote ethics and values of what the company stands for

through marketing and leaders try to walk the talk; we try to be aware of others who offer

similar services and what they are doing badly, so we can reinforce the contrary; it is

essentially about strong awareness of the leadership and marketing alignment”.

Being the leading international body for marketing and business development puts

pressure on the organisation to maintain its position, and evolve marketing before others in

the industry. One of the interviewees, the Director of Education at CIM – a person, who had

heard the term leadership marketing, commented on the benefits of implementing it in the

organisation:

“As CIM was product-driven, now it is focused on being more responsive and

delivering, from a customer perspective. CIM was departmentally driven, but with the

Institute’s new leader, it has been recognised that leadership marketing needs to be cross-

functional to work and needs a more cultural approach. Simply put, you cannot do leadership

marketing in isolation. And CIM needs to embrace the concept of leadership marketing

wholeheartedly”.

As such, leadership marketing allows marketers to redefine their role within the

organisation, and thus, acting as a catalyst for a bigger societal transformation, revolutionise

marketing organisations and, in turn, the environment where they operate. Adopting radical

approach to transparency, as part of the new leadership marketing paradigm, where leaders

are enthusiastic, energised and cohesive in creating positive energy and brand to encourage

employees to do what they love and deliver the brand to the customers, will undoubtedly

have a definite bottom-line effect. As was said by one of the entrepreneurs interviewed:

“Leadership marketing has the power to transform the organisation, having all

employees on board through leadership to buy into marketing is very powerful, as the whole

organisation becomes part of that energy and aligned into a compelling marketing force”.

PERMEATED THEMES

Those are the themes that could not be grouped under the major themes and need to be

reviewed separately.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

This theme was raised mostly by marketing and PR professionals from communication

agencies and PR consultancies. The essence of thought leadership lies in being ahead of the

competition “by communicating expertise in trends and issues of the business sector which

you operate in”, as explained by the Managing Director of a PR consultancy.

For such companies as MAA, which is the UK’s leading body for future-thinking

marketing communications agencies, the notion of thought leadership is crucial. The MAA’s

Managing Director stated that leadership marketing can be about:

“Leading the business in delivering client ideas and marketing ourselves by delivering

constant leadership – proposing ideas and leading and nurturing the debate to survive”.

According to the view of the Chief Operating Officer at a UK charity on the necessity

of both good leadership and marketing skills for organisation to adapt to the environment:

“Leadership has a good insight into the target market and how to approach it; leaders

don’t necessarily think about employing a marketing strategy, some companies are quite

successful, because they have a good idea, but they have not done much market research.

This is especially the case with small businesses - if you have a strong strategic leader, it can

still be quite successful”.

Promoting culture and structure, where people can perform at their best and bring out

their creativity are essential for ensuring collaboration and unity between departments in

developing a shared vision e.g. the example of Google, provided by Head of Social at Ogivly,

where Google employees spend 20% of their work time on creative projects that may be of

value to the organisation as a whole. Such policies, emerged from a clear understanding of

what is required, encourage employees to collaborate and create a desire for change.

However, organisation’s top leaders also need an opportunity to change – by providing

resources to facilitate the process – and consequently to shift employee behaviour.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

Amongst the main challenges of marketing in today’s business environment,

interviewees unsurprisingly named “staying ahead of competition”. Managing Director of the

leading culture transformation firm stated:

“With the rate of change going on in the needs and mindsets of stakeholders including

customer-base, the challenge is how to keep ahead of the curve related to those changing

needs and how to anticipate and address them in a just-in-time way - not too soon and not

too late”

A balance between upfront investment into developing market insight and opportunity

costs needs to be carefully considered. Ever-changing consumer needs, shortened product life

cycles and market saturation make it more important for a company to stand out. The

Regional Marketing Director of a major conferences industry player, which is heavily

involved with direct marketing, noted:

“Making sure that you are seen and heard amongst others – overcoming competition

not only from external companies but also with internal emails too”.

Continuous marketing research and innovation are central to new product development,

adding value to the organisation and staying profitable. Understanding consumer psychology

and knowing what to measure and how to interpret consumer behaviour data correctly

becomes challenging when, according to the Marketing Director of the conference producer:

“Marketing budgets are declining and there is increasing pressure for accountability -

tracking marketing spent versus revenue (ROI); ensuring that you are achieving better

marketing results for less money and effectively dealing with resource constraints”.

Embracing technological change and understanding the way to use new digital media,

i.e. internet and social media, to the greatest benefit of the brand was also considered a

challenge that marketers face. Managing Director of the boutique PR consultancy said:

“Internet technology is evolving very fast and is very transparent. It increases the

number of people you can talk to and does so cheaply, which allows a global marketing

perspective”.

Managing Director of the Marketing Agencies Association (MAA) stated that:

“Ten years ago it was all about creative ideas and their execution – being structured

and having a clear pathway to put them together; nowadays, you just do not know what is

going to happen, with social media having a massive influence on communication strategy,

agencies need to change in order to work with the audience, which is the biggest challenge”.

This also raises a question about perception and the trust consumers have in marketing.

As Head of News at LSBF said:

“With the state of the global economy, there is a perception about there being less

money. It is more difficult to persuade customers that they need something, also the public is

generally more aware and more cynical than ever”.

All of the three previous interviewees touched upon the issue of marketing not being

transparent enough.

PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK

A model, illustrated on Figure 4, offers a comprehensive view of the leadership

marketing concept based on the themes identified from the semi-structured interviewees with

opinion leaders in the field. A new paradigm of leadership marketing rests on four

components – thought leadership that comes from environmental awareness, organisational

alignment and agility, as organisational ability to adapt to changes in external environment.

These elements are closely interlinked whereby organisations that are environmentally aware

are more capable in adjusting to shifts in business conditions. Thus, by becoming more agile,

the business need to create internal alignment increases. Thought leadership allows

companies to remain ahead of the competition and also provides a direction in which

organisations can advance. The model forms a cycle of prerequisites and outcomes for

organisations to implement leadership marketing.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS TO MANAGEMENT

This study reveals that with the speed of change in the current business environment, marketing

strategies quickly become out of date if not tuned in to market needs. While leadership

develops employees to help organisation to adapt to external changes, marketing has external

focus on the customer. The challenge that businesses need to address, as indicated in this study,

is how to create alignment between organisational competencies and customer needs.

Furthermore, it was discovered that internal and external perceptions of the brand need to be

identical to ensure desired performance levels. As a result of the research, organisational

alignment, agility and environmental awareness were established as key determinants of the

new leadership marketing paradigm. It was also recognised that marketing drives change by

anticipating future customer needs and communicating this information internally to adapt the

organisation to the shifting business environment. Consequently, with the findings comes the

challenge: conventional marketing lacks credibility and authenticity according to both - internal

views of the leadership team and external views of customers – to lead the organisational

change. Revolution of marketing itself is crucial for the discipline to regain its importance and

respect within organisations. To achieve this, marketing needs to form a closer relationship

with leadership by way of marketers become better leaders within their profession and business

as well as marketing being represented on the top management board and having its own voice.

What follows is a framework for determining fundamental components of leadership

marketing and essential interrelations of those elements with surrounding environment and

stakeholders (see Figure 4). Based on existing academic marketing and leadership theories and

primary research findings, the framework represents the DNA of the new leadership marketing

paradigm. It allows organisations to adapt the concept of leadership marketing internally and

enables the modification of its constituents and to tailor corporate strategy according to changes

in external business conditions. Environmentally-aware adaptive organisations that deliver

holistic consumer experiences and coherent messages to the market, have reached high levels

of creativity, alignment, innovation and collaboration, which helps everyone make a leap in a

way that wins for the business. Throughout this study it was recognised that strong leadership

and effective marketing are equally necessary for sustainable development of the organisation.

Both of them are indispensable, but nonetheless insufficient in today’s rapidly changing

environment. For that reason, organisational ability to adapt to those changes was identified as

another crucial capability. As the new leadership marketing paradigm offers a whole systems

approach that strengthens the link between marketing and leadership and also enhances

organisational agility, encouraging leadership marketing within the organisation will help the

business to overcome its marketing challenges. Unified brand message, motivated employees

and innovative ideas will be promoted to differentiate the company and create a holistic

consumer experience and get customers believing in a brand and its reputation. The main

recommendation from this research is that organisations challenge the conventional role of

marketing within the business and look for innovative ways of adapting the new leadership

marketing paradigm. From the marketing perspective, leadership is necessary for creating

engagement and driving change. Thus, one of the recommendations to marketing professionals

is to develop leadership skills in order to fulfil their roles in the organisation more successfully

and help the organisation achieve its commercial goals. This in itself will become a catalyst for

revolution of marketing and the role it plays in business, challenging the conventional view on

marketing and raising awareness of the new paradigm.

From the leadership perspective, the importance of marketing needs to be formally and

truthfully recognised by giving it a place on the board of management. In the last few years,

marketing has lost its significance due to the perception of being content-driven and not having

its own voice and, hence, credibility, while other business areas such as finance and operations

have grown in importance. Leadership needs marketing as it focuses on understanding the

market and being in tune with the customers’ desires. Leadership relies on marketing to

anticipate changes in consumer needs, identify opportunities for business success and deliver

products or services in the most effective and profitable way for organisation and the customer.

Organisations need to understand the dynamics of the organisation and how its various parts

interconnect between themselves and external environment. The leadership marketing DNA

model suggests the possible components and interaction between them as well as with the

external environment. This allows for greater organisational agility to be developed as well as

alignment of the internal and external view of the brand. By breaking silo barriers between the

departments and increasing cross-functionality organisations will see the bigger picture,

enhance collaboration, mutual sharing of accountabilities, transparency and teamwork. It will

also allow businesses to use resources collectively and innovatively to differentiate themselves

in communicating and meeting customer needs. Furthermore, change in remuneration and

bonuses is needed, by way of performance review being based on aligned goals and elimination

of silo budgeting.

Marketers need to spend more time working with teams and be interested in engaging with

other departments, which may lead marketing to the higher echelons of the organisation,

granting it more power and gaining more respect on the board of management. Leadership

marketing creates a vision about the development of the marketing function within the

organisation and chooses efficient ways to implement it by getting other departments aligned.

Marketing needs to rebuild its credibility by communicating with authenticity, transparency and

meaning. Vision of how marketing operates as a whole comes from greater understanding of

consumer values and experiences. Marketing enables shared understanding across the

leadership team about customer, strategy and markets and how they operate in a coherent way.

Modern brands need to remember that nowadays customers appreciate collective experiences

more than individual - everything that the company does takes place in networks. This study

offers a contribution that marketers may consider for management of their function, and to a

certain extent, the whole business. Throughout this study, a pressing need for change in

business management as well as marketing was recognised. Numerous benefits of adopting the

new leadership marketing paradigm were also named. Effective integration of various

organisational and marketing components results in greater responsiveness of the business to

the changes in the external environment, as well as successful alignment of employee

perception to customer perception of the brand. The current study highlights the need for

marketers to develop leadership skills, such as those mentioned above, to fulfil their role within

the organisation. By being a leader in marketing and promoting marketing so as to achieve

leadership in the marketplace, organisations embrace the new leadership marketing paradigm.

Leadership needs to be more involved in marketing and marketing needs to make more

leadership decisions. Organisations need to ensure alignment of vision and integrity of

marketing with company’s values and direction - marketing is required to have sound

awareness of market needs and, through leadership, to align company’s vision with the

marketing message and demonstrate integrity in doing so. The leadership marketing paradigm

ensures strong awareness of leadership and marketing alignment within the business. It is a

mindset of the way organisations can operate, combining leadership and marketing at a senior

level. To successfully adopt leadership marketing to stay abreast of changes, the organisation’s

leadership needs to connect and empower marketing to have the power to transform and engage

other functions and partners. Marketers should create a desire for change and also give the

opportunity and resources for these departments to change, and this will shift employee

behaviour. By addressing the point above regarding redefining marketing, it should be

recognised that leadership marketing involves shifting mindsets in its definition. It sets the tone

and drives change, gets people on board and inspires them to lead that challenge, facilitating

change of organisational culture to enable delivery of brand promise internally and externally.

Leaders should bring in new ideas and have awareness of what is happening outside, and

marketing needs to be creative in proposing ways to reach the market. Marketing is a catalyst

of organisational change and should get other departments to buy into the changes and

incorporate them into strategy and activities. As previously mentioned, marketing should

integrate more with other departments and adapt business internally by changing its offering

externally. Ensuring that organisation has a united view on how it works with suppliers,

partners and customers will assist in aligning value-creation chain with perceptions of

stakeholders. It is necessary to connect organisational culture with the desired creative evolving

strategy, which is based on listening and awareness of anticipation of clients’ future needs.

Organisations need a leadership marketing approach to ensure that a company brings to its

markets a clearly defined product or service, which is aligned with the company’s vision and

values and meets the needs of customers, and where the message is clear for both employees

and potential buyers alike. Thought the mindset of leadership marketing, organisations can

deliver from the customer perspective by ensuring congruity between the way employees and

customers perceive the brand. To strengthen the connection between internal employees’

attitudes and external appearances of the brand to customers, organisations should analyse gaps

in stakeholders’ perceptions of the brand and use tailored marketing communication to translate

brand values into customer experiences. Regular communication is necessary with an aim of

aligning visions and building bonds between departments to ensure cohesive delivery of brand

promise.

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